William Hurt will star in an upcoming ITV adaptation for 'Beowulf'. Hurt will star alongside Joanne Whalley and Kieran Bew.

William Hurt, the Academy Award winning American actor, will star in a new adaptation of Beowulf. 64-year-old Hurt is best known for his roles in such films as A History of Violence, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby and Winter's Tale. The 13-part drama Hurt will star in has been commissioned by ITV and is due to begin filming in Durham and Northumberland later this month.

With its limited setting, contained cast and existential plot, this feels more like a play than a film. So while it's well-acted by a first-rate cast, it also feels somewhat indulgent and oddly unsatisfying.

Colin (Winstone) is a complete wreck after his wife Liz (Whalley) leaves him.

He's so distraught that his pals (Wilkinson, Hurt, McShane and Dillane) get together and kidnap the other man (Poupaud) so Colin can get his revenge. Now they're all in a disused house somewhere in London, as Colin's friends try to help him get control of his emotions. Flashbacks and fantasies ensue as Colin tries to figure out what to do, and whether an act of murderous violence will help soothe his soul.

Weird and creepy pot boiler has Bill Pullman as a high-profile Manhattan lawyer who gets mixed up in a scheme to off a girl (Anwar) whom he sorta-raped in a drunken haze. Only it turns out the would-be hitman is the long-lost son (Sawa) he never knew he had!

George Lucas and Ron Howard both love high adventure and, apparently, Hobbits.

Unfortunately, making a real version of Lord of the Rings is fraught with problems, as some directors know, so Lucas and Howard teamed up on an original short dude-goes-on-epic-adventure tale, this time having a "Nelwyn" named Willow (ex-Ewok Warwick Davis) finding a baby in a river, whom he must then protect from the evil Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh), who is seeking the baby to destroy her thanks to the classic she-will-grow-up-to-destroy-me prophecy. Willow teams up with a half-crazed human named Madmartigan (Val Kilmer), rescues a shape-changed sorceress, battles a two-headed dragon (allegedly named "Eborsisk" after a certain powerful pair of film critics) and converts the evil queen's daughter (Joanne Whalley) from the dark side, all in two short hours.

A capable first film noir from John Dahl (Red Rock West, The Last Seduction) relies far too much on coincidence and no-one-would-really-do-that moments to work. Kilmer and his then-wife Whalley make a good pair as a bad excuse for a private investigator and the woman who hires him to fake her death. When the cops and the various criminals in pursuit of her (including Madsen in his most over-the-top role ever) catch up, it's a madhouse of slaughter! Nice try, but Dahl's later work is better (okay, not including Unforgettable).